Evaluating election day front pages

EDITOR'S NOTE: These images were taken from the collection of newspaper front page images available at the Newseum Web site.

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, San Jose, Calif.

Very nice, very
clean design from what is always one of the nation's best-designed newspapers.
The photo of Bush is a good one; the enormous "W" projected behind
him is a happy accident that the page designer made good use of. Some editors
don't allow text over photos, but this page shows why it should be allowed:
It works well and gives the page more impact. It's a shame that Bush's face was
pushed below the fold, but the designers here decided it was more important
to get the "slow count" story in the racks — and I'd agree. Remember
the first three rules of newspapering: 1) Local. 2) Local. 3) Local. That's
a nice picture of Kerry at the bottom; nice contrast with the Bush shot. And
the typography and structure of the bottom third of the page is clear and logical.
A very elegant job. And a nice keepsake for the readers in the valley.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, San Francisco, Calif.

Some of the pages
we looked at yesterday, you may recall, had a bit of a disconnect between the
main headline and the main photo. Sometimes, this is necessary. But it's also
important to remember: the reader usually sees the page as a whole. When the
headline doesn't agree — or, worse yet, clashes — with the photo, then problems
result. I think that happens here. The story and the headline talks about Bush's
speech Wednesday and how he's reaching out to unite Republicans and Democrats.
A lofty goal; a remarkable address. But look at the photo — I suspect most
readers would describe Bush's expression here as "smug." While I like
the colors in the photo — the rear-projection gives us some nice pinks, blues
and oranges — I don't think the president's facial expression here helps us
tell our story. The page structure and typography works well to tell the other
stories of the day.

ORLANDO SENTINEL, Orlando, Fla.

A nice page, built
around a very nice photo of Bush and his wife. We mentioned achieving harmony
with headlines and the lead photo — well, this page seems to do that very well.
The "Calls for unity" hed goes very well with the shot of Bush holding
Laura's hand. As best I can tell, Bush's head and right hand would have just
peeked out of the newspaper racks, which is nice. The pull-quote above the photo
reads well. The infographic comparing Florida's night to that of four years
ago is timely and interesting. And the promo to the NBA story is compelling.
Minuses? I'd question packaging the Kerry photo — as much as I like that photo
— with the "Morality" story. And it's a shame the story about Bush's
"2nd-term goals" is separated from the photo and lede story. Those
are minor quibbles, though; this is a nice, nice page.

THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, Atlanta, Ga.

Hmm... Granted,
I didn't see Wednesday's front, because it didn't make its way to the Newseum.
But this seems like a very odd choice for Thursday's 1A: For most papers, maps
were more of a first-day thing — see, for example, the page I critiqued yesterday
from the Augusta Chronicle, which is also a Georgia-based paper. The map seems
nicely constructed and shows graphically how widespread Bush's appeal was, county-by-county.
My problem with maps like this, though, is that they don't accurately reflect
the enormous number of voters in cities. Example? Look at Illinois on this map.
It's nearly all red. You'd never know that the state voted for Kerry Tuesday
night. The same for Washington and Oregon. And Pennsylvania. And Michigan. Besides
my reservations about this type of map and why it's important enough two days
later to be on 1A, this page is structured very well. The headline is nice and
bold. The photo is well-cropped. I like the breakout numbers at the upper left
and the promos down the middle. The two illustrated promos at the bottom detract,
somewhat, from the clean, clear organization you see elsewhere on the page.

THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, Chicago, Ill.

As they say in
Chicago: 'Holy cow!' In light of the comments I made yesterday about this paper,
I wanted to check them out again today. I'm glad I did. Now THERE'S a keepsake
front! That photo of Bush and his family is a keeper. The designer puts part
of the photo overlapping the paper's nameplate, magazine-style, which is very,
very attractive. The entire top third of the page consistes of the nameplate,
photo and a hed/refer, which frees up space to also give major impact to a big
local story, below. Wow. Does tab design get any better than this? The comments
I made yesterday still stand, though: It's an extremely unconventional choice
to use Photoshop on news photos: The designers here dropped the background a
couple of levels, faded the bottom and inserted the nameplate. But for this
paper — which has a history of this sort of presentation and feels comfortable
with the Photoshop work — that's cool. Only other negative: Should there be
i.d.'s on the photo? Or are Bush's daughters and wife THAT recognizable by now?
So far, this is my favorite front today.

THE TIMES-PICAYUNE, New Orleans, La.

Another big, bold front that uses enormously dominant images and clean, simple lines to lead the
reader through the day's news. The photo of Bush works very well, of course,
as it does in many of the papers that chose to lead with this image. But what
makes this page really sing is the typography — the font for the main headline
lends a touch of elegance to this page that most pages lack today... or any
day, for that matter. And notice how a page can still have an enormous impact
without using thick, bold, black headlines. It's simply a different voice than
the bigger, bold font. And it works very well here. Notice the editors chose
to make room for the photo and the big headline by limiting their front to only
three stories, plus a large Kerry pull-quote that, you could argue, is practically
the equivalent of a fourth story. Also notice the editors don't feel the need
to include a Hornets logo with their refer, across the top of the page. The
faint silvery eagle atop the package is a nice subtle touch. Nice attention
to detail here.

STAR TRIBUNE, Minneapolis, Minn.

Wow! Just look
at the crop on that lede photo! Unusual, isn't it? That's one of the ways to
give your page impact. You want clean, clear typography, a clear structure for
your heds and stories and no clutter, of course. But an usual shape can really
make your page reach out, grab a reader by the lapels and say, 'Read me!' The
photo is positioned just so the "W" will appear above the fold, which
makes for a nice presentation in the rack. The stories are nicely organized
down the sides. The refer assembly up top is nicely restrained; any icons or
mugs up there would have reduced the clean feel of the page. I like the flag
effect in place of the Strib's usual green rule — it's a very nice touch. A
great page!

Here are a couple of other pages with an unsual, strong vertical
crops and clean sticks of type:

BEAVER COUNTY TIMES, Pennsylvania

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, Pittsburgh, Pa.

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, Providence, R.I.

THE NEWS & OBSERVER, Raleigh, N.C.

Nice, large lede
photo. Good, clean lines. The reader can easily follow the hierarchy of the
page. Note how the editors elected to put only five stories on this page, which
allowed the designer to build a less-crowded, structured package. This page
proves that it IS possible to put a lot of text on a page and still have it
not look cluttered. The chart — with the big numbers beneath — in the center
of the page is particularly nice.

THE OKLAHOMAN, Oklahoma City, Okla.

The top half
of this page is quite good. The lede photo is played large, the headline is
strong enough to make for a great above-the-fold look. I like the little picture
of Kerry, cropped vertically to emphasize the contrast with the Bush photo.
But the lower half of this page sort of trails off in a sea of grey. What happened?
For starters, the designer used wide column widths — VERY wide — on all three
stories. This might work if there were some sort of grid down here, but notice
how all the columns shift between stories. If we had, perhaps, used a standard
six-column grid — a or seven-column grid, for all my Gannettiod friends —
I think you'd have seen a bit more white space and a bit more structure down
here. As it is now, you have the column mug, the 'Total coverage' logo, the
photo and a few stray headlines that appear to be milling around. Perhaps horizontal
rules between the stories would have helped. In all, not a bad page. And, in
fact, just a few tweaks away from being a very good page.

RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH, Richmond, Va.

More than anything
else I've seen today, this demonstrates a great unity of visual and main headline.
"A call for unity." Bush on the phone. Heck, this one is so obvious
that it's nearly a visual pun. But at least — and this is important! — the
headline doesn't clash with the photo! We really CAN'T emphasise this enough.
The designers here chose to run this very nice Oval Office photo six columns
wide and to let the other political stories fall beneath in orderly rows. Each
story has a parallel refer box, which breaks up all that gray text quite nicely.
A well-structured page with a lot of impact.

ASBURY PARK PRESS, Neptune, N.J.

Here's another
one I'm revisiting from yesterday, in part BECAUSE I wanted to see how they
followed yesterday's front. Today, the designers chose to go with an enormous
"Bush" headline and a nice little cutout of the president. The meat
of the news goes below the fold. This works much, much better than yesterday's
front — mostly because the white space around the headline give it enough contrast
to set it apart from the big, dense eagle artwork. Looking at these pages is
a lot like trying to hold dinner conversation in a restaurant where the music
is loud. If it works for them, great. But be aware: You have to do something
really, really unusual on the page in order to shout down the large icon.

THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW, Spokane, Wash.

This page suffers
slightly from a breakdown in structure. The designer doesn't want to add a horizontal
rule between the governor story and the lead Bush package, because they're both
election stories. But the white space on either side of the little quote makes
it look like the two are drifting apart. Perhaps this wasn't the best place
to run a quote. The photo is good, but unfortunately, it loses any drama due
to the crop. A square is generally the most difficult shape to work with in
any page design. It's easy to move elements around a square, but squares have
very little drama. Better to find art with a strong vertical or horizontal shape
and then let that art tell you where to take the page. What I LOVE about this
page, though, is the headline: "Back by popular demand" is the best
hed I've seen today! Brilliant!

THE SUN JOURNAL, Lewiston, Maine

This small paper
in Lewiston, Maine, has become one of the best-designed papers in the country
— in no small part because of efforts like this one. The horizontal photo of
the president and his family dominate the page and fill the rack window quite
nicely. Secondary photos tell the additional stories of the failed challenger
and his own family. The lede story runs down the left side of the page — to
heck with that old chestnut of placing the lede in the center right! — and
the secondary election stories run in vertical columns at the bottom right,
each paired with pullout boxes to give the reader some perspective. This is
a nice, nice page. Not bad at all for a 35,000 daily. Not bad at all for a daily
of ANY size!

We'll close with an assortment of commemorative 'poster' fronts:

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, St. Louis, Mo.

Great photo play. Nice choice to lay the nameplate over the photo. I like how you can still
see the "W" behind the text. Bottom of the page is nice and clean.
Great job!

THE PATRIOT NEWS, Harrisburg, Pa.

An excellent example
of a broadsheet poster front by a mid-sized paper. The text down the left aren't
exactly refers, they're more like brief recaps of the stories of the day. Very
nice.

THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS, Denver, Colo.

The designer here chooses to run the photo huge and keep the text to a minimum. A nice, understated
approach that works very well on a day like today.

THE STATE, Columbia, S.C.

I like the nameplate
reversed out of the photo and the reversed headline. Notice how the designer
added a very faint drop-shadow on the hed to make it 'pop' from the lighter
parts of the photograph. The slightly cocked presidental seal and the crop adds
visual interest to what would be a static logo.

THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT, Norfolk, Va.

At my own paper — which is famous for its poster fronts — designer Julie Elman designed this
elegant page around a photo of Bush that I haven't yet seen on anyone else's
front. The promos along the bottom are very clean. This looked great in the
rack this morning in front of McDonald's.